Lovesick drinker, 65, barred from pub for harassing barmaid

A DRINKER has been banned indefinitely from part of York and the pub where he was a regular, because he would not accept no from a barmaid.

William Harrison, 65, told the 22-year-old woman he loved her and insisted on pestering her for months despite her telling him she did not love him, said Sam Law, prosecuting.

He sent her an engagement ring and twice proposed to her by letter.

“She was very frightened by his behaviour,” said Ms Law. “She feels she has been watched and stalked by Harrison.” District judge Adrian Lower told Harrison he needed psychiatric help.

“You have to understand, whatever your feelings towards other people, if they don’t reciprocate these feelings and don’t want to have contact with you, they don’t want to have contact with you,” said the judge at York Magistrates’ Court.

He made a restraining order banning him from going to Haxby and Wigginton indefinitely and ever having any contact of any kind with the barmaid and ordered him to do three years’ supervision by the probation service.

Harrison must also pay a £60 statutory surcharge and £300 prosecution costs.

The landlord at the pub where the barmaid works has already banned him from it, York Magistrates’ Court heard.

Harrison, of Hawthorn Terrace, New Earswick, had denied harassing the woman between March and December 2013 but was convicted at a trial. He told the judge he did not have a mental health problem and declined to give any mitigation other than that he was currently off sick from work and did not have much money.

Ms Law said the harassment began in March 2013 when Harrison asked to speak to the barmaid in private. He then told her of his “strong feelings”.

She tried to keep away from him and got her colleagues to serve him drinks, but while she was on holiday, he told other staff he would “get her”. On her return to work, she called in the police, who warned him to keep away from her.